"Behold! I've brought you a [wo]man." -Diogenes
Born with the intention of holding eggs? Do they not know what the word intention means?
$20 says it implies "intended by god".
These asshats tend to try and hide their religious bias, but it comes out like this every now and then, and they often don't realize.
It doesn’t need to be intended by God. It can be intended by nature. It’s kind of like saying that homosexuality is unnatural because nature intended for male-female reproduction. That whole nonsense. Seems the same here.
The following isn't an argument against trans people in any way, only against this thought process. I've been having thoughts on this that I want to get out there and hear people's opinion on. Don't attack me, I have nothing against trans and fully support them. But I hate that this has become an argument. I'm not really sure what the point is. What is the end goal?
Scenario 1: Someone actually makes some 20 page long legal type document, going into every possible facet and exception, that actually fits what the person is asking for. Will they then agree with the haters that trans women are not women? I doubt it. But then why ask?
Scenario 2: They ask because they believe it isn't possible. But then what does that mean? Because it's not possible to define it, anyone can say what it means? First, you can say this for a lot of things. I'm betting you can't make a definition for a car, that doesn't exclude any actual car, but doesn't include any vehicles that aren't a car. Does that mean we all just get to say whether our particular vehicle is a car or not? I don't think it's a good argument.
Again, I support trans, and believe if someone says they want to be treated as and referred to as a woman (or whatever), they should be. I don't agree that someone's ability to define a word or not should dictate this though. So I don't agree with this particular argument, especially when I truly believe it's disingenuous in the first place, and that if someone did succeed, it wouldn't mean anything to the people making the argument anyway.
There's some context that's important to this whole argument that may clear things up for you a bit:
This whole thing started when TERFs claimed that trans women aren't women by the definition of what a woman is, and people asked them to define a woman. The original answer by the person who started this merry-go-round was "an adult human capable of giving birth."
It was immediately pointed out that this definition excluded a massive percentage of cis women, and TERFs have been in denial ever since and trying to come up with a new simple definition that excludes trans women from being women.
There is no intent to this other than saying that trans women aren't women.
The question simply illustrates that there can't be a definition that includes all edge cases.
Therefore, passing legislation that criminalizes people using a woman's bathroom if they don't fit the definition doesn't make sense.
Unless your goal is to throw all women into a legal grey area, so you can better control them.I think you don't fully understand the intention behind the argument. Rather than being part of some mathematical deeply logical proof, it is much more an appeal to someone's common sense or feelings.
Generally, the conservatives like to portray themselves on trans issues as the common sense side. Think of when they extend LGBTQ with all sorts of weird letters, rolling their eyes. Or think of Dave Chappelle's punching down specials. Or think of The One Joke. And this is a very successful starting point, because most people are not knowingly interacting with trans people, so to them trans issues are already a bit unfamiliar, or weird.
The idea behind the argument is to have the answerer realize that in fact their position is not the obvious one, and that their position is actually weird. And this is highly subjective. The point is not the answer, the point is the hoops they'll have to jump through to get to a satisfactory trans-exlusionary answer.
It's subjective of course, but it's very hard for someone to write a 20 page definition of gender and then follow that up with "duh". Or to write something like "producer of the large gametes" or whatever and feel like a normal person.
Car is one of those repurposed words. It used to mean any wheeled vehicle until around 170 years or so ago. Automobile was used at first for cars. When I was young automobile or auto was the preferred term. Car or auto can be used for motorcycles or trains, there are just better words for those.
Human sexuality is a spectrum and not an either/or situation, and should be treated as such. That being said, a chromosome test would answer the question in over 95% of cases, I believe. I could be wrong about this, so anyone with a better understanding, please correct me.
definition doesn't stop until the historical etymology bottoms out.
You are wrong about the percentige. https://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2010-intersexuality.html
chromosomes are like 1 of 5 gears in human biology that can end up with independantly different sayings.
Of course the real problem, as many fellows have indicated, is that the 'common sense' take is incomplete, and the entire platform is harmfully dehumanizing.
No hate, but I love a good debate if you're up for it.
Scenario 1:
Great points, honestly. However, even in this scenario where someone manages to cover all of the bases and managed to create an exact list of what it means to be a woman, it would be impossible to disqualify trans women.
Scenario 2:
I'll get deeper into this one since it's more realistic.
I bet you can't define a car
Vehicles are defined by their frames, and the regulations that revolve around those. I can tell you with absolute certainty whether a vehicle is a car or a truck based off the frame. But this isn't the point.
Does that mean we all just get to [define words ourselves]
Actually yes. Words gain their definition by how they are most commonly used. You learn a word based off its definition, but the word gains its definition from use. This is how Shakespeare managed to invent so many words in English. He just started using them, and when people asked what they meant he told them and they started using them. This is also why "literally" is defined as "not literally" by Webster dictionary, or at least it was around 2016 (may have changed).
As a matter of fact, entire languages have been built around this concept of redefining words. Most of German is just portmanteaus that were understandable enough to be considered a word.
In this particular case, the words "man" and "woman" is slowly being redefined by society to be more inclusive of trans people. Fighting against the progress of language, in this scenario, is nearly identical to fighting against the progress of trans people.
OK first I have no problem with language evolving. I have no problem with trans people using the word man, woman or whatever else for themselves as they feel comfortable. I have no problem with new words being defined or old words being redefined. That's not really my issue.
My issue is making the argument that trans people should or shouldn't be able to use the word on the basis that someone else can or can't define it in such a way that would exclude them but not others. Can you really say with absolute certainty, with infinite time and space, such a definition could not theoretically exist? That it isn't in the realm of possibility? And whether it can or can't exist, should it really define whether they can or can't use a word?
Also out of curiosity, because as you said it's not really the point, but regarding the cars, is that really a certainty, including all cars throughout history, all custom home made and kit cars, all foreign cars, specialised race cars, electric cars, they will ALL definitely fit into a single neat set of regulations/definition?
Huh, then menopause it's the moment when a cis woman turns into a cis man? No wonder they are super upset about the whole thing. The more you know, the full cycle of manhood is more complex than you know.
This is a really bad definition because it very obviously excludes people who transition to women later in life.
That's intentional.
But it's also a really bad definition because it excludes most women over the age of 50.
Sounds like a problem for their doctor or a scientist, there isnt anywhere else it would matter about their biological status. So a woman is someone that says they are a woman.
"It's complicated" is probably better for doctors and scientists. The other day I was filling out a "women only" medical form and about half of the questions were relevant to me.
And for a scientist, what exactly are they studying? For social science or psychology I'm an outlier no matter which gender or sex box you put me in; for reproductive stuff I'm closer to male but still somewhat of an outlier (because hormones); for various other medical things I'm closer to female (hormones again); neurologically idk, but there's evidence trans people tend to not match their AGAB here.
But yeah, normal people shouldn't care about any of that when just talking to me.
trans people who want to update their sex in their passport, birth certificate drivers license etc are wild to me!
...that's an exaggeration; it's a much more complex issue that often involves public safety in ways that don't affect me as a FtNB. If I go into a women's bathroom people mostly just squint at me and if I went into a men's people would probably mostly do the same. And if they did accost me in the ladies' my plan is to show them my vagina then cry and ask how many women with their breasts surgically removed and no hair do they plan to do this to?
but somewhere deep down I can't help but to think gender markers should never have been on government documents to begin with. the government doesn't need to know what genitals I had when I was born or anything about how that may or may not have to do with the life I'm living now. massive governmental overreach if you ask me (and the bathrooms wouldn't be an issue if Americans had real bathroom walls and doors where you can't access others peeing like that anyway.
The US seems to have an eggsistential crisis.
I just intentionally ate 2 more eggs then normal today. What's going to happen to me?!1 am i going to get gregnat
This is the same way i got picante too
<Insert egg joke here>
grEGGnat
I'm sorry you found out this way. Prepare your preganante fund
Lav
I didn't know it was possible for everyone to simply intend for their body to engage or not engage in such a bodily function. Interesting. /s
What makes one think they have any interest in a woman's intentions with herself..? Intention is a loaded word and needs to pull over to the weigh station for inspection.
wait until they find out about the p-spot!
Yeah, honestly, screw the meme reply. What the absolute holy hell is "the intention of holding eggs" in your body?
I mean, pretty sure that covers a whole bunch of trans women and decidedly not a whole bunch of cis women, but that's besides the point. What did she mean?
I fear there is a whole pseudoscientific terfy rabbit hole behind this and I don't want to fall down that hole, but I kinda need to know if it's a slip of the tongue or what.
What did she mean?
She meant god.
If you listen to some people talk about evolution or ancient mysteries of the body, they love describing things by their supposed purpose.
I had a long argument with somebody once, trying to convince them that sex wasn't for babies, even though that's what it often results in.
So like, evolutionarily, sex produces babies, that's why "it" "cares." But, a bird doesn't need to know what sex is or why it should want a baby to be motivated to do the thing that makes one. Similarly, a bee doesn't need to know that it's spreading pollen around, it just wants that sweet little flower juice.
I don't remember why this argument was important to have, but I do remember them just not getting the distinction between "does" and "meant to."
To me, it seems like she was going to only say "capability of holding eggs," then thought about it and actually realized it would exclude some cis women, so she added "intention" as if it meant "would usually be capable of" but just used a bad word to imply that. I could be reading into it a bit much though.
Of course, that wouldn't work either, since that could then include or exclude people with various assortments of chromosomes in which it's undetermined as to if they would or would not typically have eggs, and would also just open a whole meta argument about how early in the developmental process there would or wouldn't be "intention" for that to happen, which is entirely subjective.
Went to shop today to buy egg specifically til I am woman amazing
Behold, a woman
Modern day Diogenese over here
“What's up fuckers hey check out this woman I found, isn't it such a woman? Look at her wow! Plegghh what a gal. Anyway, love to stay and chat but I saw some trash outside that looked delicious. Smell you later, deliberator.”
So as long as i have the intention to hols eggs i am a women or when people stop being capable of producing eggs they automatically get a raise for becoming a man?
No, no. You have to be born with the intention or capability. If you did not intend or were able to hold eggs at birth, then you're not a woman.
tbh I don't think most babies intend for anything the moment they're born
